Big guns control.

[miko2d]

 Current "look alongside the barrel view" is good for AA and point-blank defence fire or close fleet encounters.

 It sucks for bombardment. What is the point of looking alongside the barrel inclined 45 degrees up?
 It is possible to decouple the view from the gun by using the manual pan mode, but then you do not have any kind of a gunsite for reference (unless you use a mouse pointer or draw on the screen) and hit spotting still sucks.

 In RL, long range fire control was performed from fire-control station way up the mast, with good unobstructed view and better estimation of the hit sprites from above.
 Could we have F6 view for bombardment move us to the fire control?
 Joystick input should still control rotation and elevation of the gun and rotation of the view the same way, but the view elevation should be restricted to much smaller range (+-10 degrees?).

 In exchange for the easier gunning there could be some round dispersion.

miko

[Dingy]

Actually you can sorta already do this.  From the gun position hit F3 and then hit F8.  Use the arrow keys to position the camera behind the turret.  Now as you aim, you will see the gun barrels raise and lower as well as the direction the guns are aimed.  As you turn the guns, the view will turn too.  The only problem I can see is the lack of hit sprites, smoke from where the shells hit.  

-Ding

[This message has been edited by Dingy (edited 01-23-2001).]

[miko2d]

 

Originally posted by Dingy:
Actually you can sorta already do this.  From the gun position hit F3 and then hit F8.  Use the arrow keys to position the camera behind the turret.
-Ding

 Well, Ding, that's what "decouple the view from the gun by using the manual pan mode" is. I also zoom in to the max. Still, it is not as nice as looking from 200 feet up when it comes to determining overshoot. That's why they positioned that fire control up there!    

miko

[This message has been edited by miko2d (edited 01-23-2001).]

[dakota]

been goone awhile

[Maverick]

If we are going to have a greater emphasis on gunnery here (a good idea IMO) we need to have an assist for the gunners. While the central gunnery director sounds kinda sexy I am concerned that it takes a gun position away from other players. We have the problem with ranking players (people who game this game very well) monopolizing the cv's already. If you make a central director you place more of the game aspects into a position of control monopoly again.

I have a request for surface actions for the guns. I request that fleet icons be instituted for the ship to ship action. You don't have to have them visible for planes vs ship as the ships already show up at extended ranges now. For surface to surface action there is no rangefinder for the guns. This means that gunnery is very difficult and the hits even with spotters (which doesn't work for ship to ship due to ack) are problematic at best. You simply can't shell a fixed spot on land unless you sail up to the shore and do it visually. The lack of depth perception is tough to deal with on ship to ship. "Real" ships had range finders, why can't we have them here in the game.

Mav

[miko2d]

   

Originally posted by Maverick:
If you make a central director you place more of the game aspects into a position of control monopoly again.

 Mav,
 I am not proposing having a central director for gunnery. I propose to have a view from the top of the mast for every individual gunner using 5" or 8" guns.
 It's not like it's going to be too tight in there!
 After all, we are pilot, bombardier and navigator in a bomber in one person. May as well be our own gunner and fire control.

miko

[This message has been edited by miko2d (edited 01-23-2001).]

[Rojo]

Following is my post on this topic in the Game Play forum.
_____________________________ _____

I'm preparing a more indepth treatise on this subject, but here is the long and short of it.
1) I suggest that guns should be controlled by battery, not by individually turrets. For example, the eight-inch turrets on the CA (naval parlance for a heavy cruiser) would be one battery, while the five inch turrets could be divided into a forward and aft battery (total of three gun positions to man for the CA. This first suggestion segways into my next...

2) Large calibre naval guns were not directed from the guns themselves, but from the Gun Director position, normally located in the tall tower(s) in front of and behind the funnels. They were placed at the highest possible point to allow the longest line of sight possible. I suggest gunner positions be created in the gun director towers on the ships in AH. The gunnery officer would then look through gun director sights (similar to binoculars, but mounted on a pintle allowing them to train out and on any bearing). Moving your stick side to side would rotate the gun director latterally. The guns of a battery would all train out together on the bearing the gun director is looking, with the gun elevation handled by moving the stick back and forth. However, the view would not change when elevating the guns; only the barrels of the gun would move. You could zoom the view in and out, just as you do now. Finally, when you fire primary, only one gun in one turret would fire. When you push the button(s) on the stick that fires both prim and secondary, all guns of all turrets slaved to that gun director would fire together.

The above ideas would reduce somewhat the number of players that can man the fleets guns, but would greatly enhance their effectiveness against land and seaborne targets. What do you all think?

_____________________________ ____

Basically, I agree.  The interface for naval gunnery needs much improvement.



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Sabre, a.k.a. Rojo
(S-2, The Buccaneers)

[Maverick]

Rojo,

I am not in favor of any change that limits or reduces the number of players that may use a gun system on a boat. I agree about the directors position but I do not think we need ANY more opportunities for a player to monopolize a weapons system or fleet. We have WAY too much of that already. I think the previous post (can't recall the name darnit) that indicated a position in a directors nest for EACH gunner is an outstanding solution. That way a player can man a gun and still have a better way to target. I still think we desperately need rangefinders. A ship to ship fight without CV's will be a blast if you can target them and have a chance of hitting before they get into 8k range.

I understand the gun central director is a "realistic" feature but this is still a game to be enjoyed by many, not a few who have the mega score to control and monopolize the fleet actions. This score basis of control is simply a quick way to determine who will control the ship. Unfortunately as it is now only the high score players who have the "game the game" knack are the ones who can say what happens with the fleets.

I love the naval action that is here in the game now but want to be able to play this feature. If I have to do it on the basis of higher score then I might as well drop my subscription to AH as I won't be one of the top gamers here at any time.

Mav

[Rojo]

Mav: I understand your concern, and please note...no where did I suggest score should have anything to do with who mans the gunnery officer positions. It should be strictly first come-first serve. My suggestion would result in a modest decrease in the number of players able to man the guns of a fleet, that's true. However, it's not just (or even primarily) for realism's sake that I suggested it...that's a derivative effect. No, the priniciple reason is to make them an effective weapon. Face it, you almost never see a fleet with every, or even most, of the guns being crewed in the MA.

Let me make an analogy with how AH handles buff guns.  In WarBirds, you could man every gun on the B-17, but you were lucky if you could find even one volunteer to gun for you.  As a result, you were undergunned when attacked.  AH solved this by allowing a single gunner to direct and fire any gun that could bear at a target.  This works pretty well in most cases. What I'm suggesting is something similar for the shipboard guns. Give each cruiser three gun positions, and destroyers two.

As noted in my previous post, trying to judge the fall of shot when multiple gunners fire at a single target was what drove real warship archetects to group batteries by calibre under a single gun director.  That's the reason I first suggested this change.  A final, game-related reason for doing this in AH is for scenario purposes; filling all the flying and vehicle billets is hard enough; having to come up with an extra couple dozen to fill gun positions may be too much to ask.

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Sabre, a.k.a. Rojo
(S-2, The Buccaneers)

[Hangtime]

I like it ROJO. Good thinkin. Hope HTC notices.

<S!>

Hang